Objectives and Key Results

Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) are a performance management framework that brings company core values and objectives together. OKRs can be tracked on company, team, and individual level.

What are Objectives?

The goal of an OKR is to connect goals and objectives in a measurable way. This is to ensure that all members of a company are working towards that company’s goals in a unified direction. OKRs help teams spend less time being distracted by trivial tasks, and more time achieving team and company goals successfully. It is easier to achieve the objectives through measurable and specific factors when they are broken down into OKRs.

Every company, team, and even individual has different objectives, so it it important to set OKRs at every level. Every company is also unique so finding the right objectives that are best for your company or team can be hard. To find out some of the best ways to find the right ones, take a look at this tutorial.

What are Key Results?

The Key Results (KRs) are the measurements that help you know you’re on track. You can help find them easier by asking your team “How will we know we’re getting there?”. KRs have to make the objective clearly achievable. They are quantifiable and lead to the objective grading.

Any metric defined in KRs should follow the S.M.A.R.T model – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound. KRs are most likely very different from team to team within a company and for each functional position.

Tracking OKRs

It is important to track the OKRs once they are set. Knowing how much progress is happening and where more focus should be put into is always helpful. One easy and visually appealing way to keep track of your company’s OKRs is with Chartio. There is a great tutorial on how to make an OKR dashboard with Chartio.

When tracking, it is important to think about what information should be communicated as well as how to visualize it. Everyone’s OKRs are different so the visualization will depend on what information is being displayed. It can also depend on why it is being displayed and who it is being shown to.

About Steven McKim

Steven is a Senior at Virginia Tech studying Computer Science. Currently interning for Chartio, he helps with the Data School site as well as Chartio.com to keep them running smoothly and make them as user friendly and visually appealing as possible.